Ecumenical Councils

From OrthodoxWiki
Revision as of 16:38, April 4, 2006 by Magda (talk | contribs) (List of Ecumenical Councils)
Jump to: navigation, search
This article or section is a stub (i.e., in need of additional material). You can help OrthodoxWiki by expanding it.


Seven or Nine Ecumenical Councils?

As far as some Orthodox are concerned, since the Seventh Ecumenical Council there has been no synod or council of the same scope as any of the Ecumenical councils. Local meetings of hierarchs have been called "pan-Orthodox," but these have invariably been simply meetings of local hierarchs of whatever Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions are party to a specific local matter. From this point of view, there has been no fully "pan-Orthodox" (Ecumenical) council since 787. Unfortunately, the use of the term "pan-Orthodox" is confusing to those not within Eastern Orthodoxy, and it leads to mistaken impressions that these are ersatz ecumenical councils rather than purely local councils to which nearby Orthodox hierarchs, regardless of jurisdiction, are invited.

Others, including 20th century theologians Fr. John S. Romanides and Fr. George Metallinos (both of whom refer repeatedly to the "Eighth and Ninth Ecumenical Councils"), Fr. George Dragas, Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos, and the 1848 Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs (which refers explicitly to the "Eighth Ecumenical Council" and was signed by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria as well as the Holy Synods of the first three), regard other synods beyond the Seventh Ecumenical Council as being ecumenical. Those who regard these councils as ecumenical often characterize the limitation of Ecumenical Councils to only seven to be the result of Jesuit influence in Russia, part of the so-called "Western Captivity of Orthodoxy."

List of Ecumenical Councils

    • Quinisext/Penthekte Council (= Fifth and Sixth) or Council in Trullo, (692); mostly an administrative council that raised some local canons to ecumenical status and established principles of clerical discipline. It is not considered to be a full-fledged council in its own right because it did not determine matters of doctrine. This council is accepted by the Orthodox Church as a part of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, but that is rejected by Roman Catholics.


The next two are regarded as ecumenical by some in the Orthodox Church but not by other Orthodox Christians, who instead consider them to be important local councils.

Later Councils

Although based strongly on the Ecumenical Councils Orthodox doctrine continues to be defined through the church. These include the mind of the church as expressed through Local Councils and letters or statements of faith put out by individual bishops. Those decisions/statements made in the past that bear particular importance today are:

  1. The Encyclical Letter of Saint Photius (867)
  2. The First Letter of Michael Cerularius to Peter of Antioch (1054)
  3. The decisions of ‘the Councils of Constantinople in 1341 and 1351 on the Hesychast Controversy
  4. The Encyclical Letter of Saint Mark of Ephesus (1440-1441).
  5. The Confession of Faith by Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople (1455-1456)
  6. The Replies of Jeremias the Second to the Lutherans (1573-1581)
  7. The Confession of Faith by Metrophanes Kritopoulos (1625)
  8. The Orthodox Confession by Peter of Moghila, in its revised form (ratified by the Council of Jassy, 1642)
  9. The Confession of Dositheus (ratified by the Council of Jerusalem, 1672)
  10. The Answers of the Orthodox Patriarchs to the Non-Jurors (1718, 1723)
  11. The Reply of the Orthodox Patriarchs to Pope Pius the Ninth (1848)
  12. The Reply of the Synod of Constantinople to Pope Leo the Thirteenth (1895)
  13. The Encyclical Letters by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on Christian unity and on the ‘Ecumenical Movement’ (1920, 1952)

Documents 5-9 are sometimes called the Symbolical Books of the Orthodox Church

See also


External links